Games Day 2012: Part III

Fritz meeting up with us on Friday to head down to the GW Bunker

GW Bunker

Jawaballs and Fritz getting ready to play an epic battle on the ice world!

The crowd gathers before the doors open for Games Day

Jawaballs sitting and waiting like the rest of us, a mere mortal!

Jawaballs somehow finds a way to get in early!!! 

Jawaballs and his Ultramarines banner which won the banner contest (again!)

Jawaballs speed painting

Fritz speed painting

Fritz playing a game with a fan

The outcome of speed painting! Our group rocks!

Banner Contest

Costume contest

Sister of Battle, won the costume contest

DKoK costume

28oz Jawa-steak over at Gibson's after Games Day!

Oh and btw, we went gambling after dinner and I won THIS much :)  Spent about 2 hours at a blackjack table and it paid off. This paid for all of my Forgeworld LOL. 

Games Day 2012: Part II

Ok so let me explain why in my last post I wrote that Gamesday sucked for me this year. Don't get me wrong, I had a great weekend and enjoyed the events all day, there's just a few things that really stood out to me that made me feel the way I did.

First, I look forward to going to Gamesday every year. Not just the social part of it, but the experience of seeing new things and the excitement of the day itself. People walking around costumes, banners flying all over the place, screaming maniacs all over the convention, etc. But this year it was SUPER light. I mean there were a total of I think 5-6 costumes, 4 banners, and sometimes quiet enough that you could hear crickets during the convention. To me, compared to past Gamesdays, it sucked because of that, not enough extra things going on.

Second, it seemed as if almost half the convention floor was dedicated to the GW and forgeworld store. I get it, as a business they want to make money. Even in years past I believe there was only one year that I can recall that GW actually did a 20% off sale on models that they had pulled off the shelves and had overstock on. But it seemed this year that they focused on selling things and cutting corners with expenses by getting rid of some fun activities (chaos carnival, big canon, movie screens, full sized marines or orks walking around) and eye candy. Getting rid of these things also means less staff they have to pay also. But in doing so, they killed the mood of Gamesday imo. 

Third, there was no demon lounge. As you guys know by now, I love to paint to compete more than painting armies to play. Well, in the past few years, I looked forward to going to the demon lounge to talk with past demon winners to get ideas and insight on painting differently or to better improve my own painting style. No such thing this year. Hopefully they bring it back next year or maybe the demon winners will find a corner and do it on their own.

Lastly, no amazing looking displays or club tables. There was one amazing table this year from Iron Snakes (or something like that) where they had a huge battle barge where you played 40k. The table was big enough to put down a Thunderhawk and it made that model look tiny. Just jaw dropping. But that was about it. GW failed to put out any interesting display tables like years past. Those massive display tables brought tears to peoples eyes because they would tell stories within the display. And also not a lot of club tables this year. I believe that having clubs come in and bringing their own tables and helping run the events throughout the day would help elevate the outcome of Gamesday as a whole.

Well, I'm sure I can go on and on, but enough of me ranting. Onto the good stuff....I'll post up in another topic right after this one. 

Games Day 2012 Weekend

Well it has come and it has gone...the one weekend that we all have anticipated and looked forward to. What can I say about Games Day this year...it was so-so. Alright fine, it kind of sucked (I'll explain later)! But before I get into all that about the actual convention, let me start from the beginning.

Pre Games Day (Friday):
I headed down to Chicago with my friend Jawaballs. He picked me up to leave for the airport at 5am on Friday morning. We got on the plane for the ride down and two things that we'll remember. 1) there was a smoking hot chick sitting pretty much right next to us. All we could think about was Slaanesh and it's wonders....Jawa almost converted from a loyalist to the thoughts and wonders that could be if he just took one step closer to her LOL!  2) One other girl on the flight was a first round 'American Idol' contest that got the golden ticket and moved onto the next round. Thought that was pretty awesome. Jawaballs even got a picture with her.

So we landed super early and couldn't check in to our hotel as it was only like 9am and the hotel check in was like 2 or 3pm. So Jawaballs and I walked around a bit and grabbed some breakfast and came back to the hotel. Luckily we ran into a different person working the front desk and they got us in early...SCORE!  Once we got into the room, we had to wait up on our other buddy, Fritz. During this time, Jawa and I came up with an army list for myself and the new army I'm planning on doing. As some of you may know, I've been out of this blogging thing for a while now and to kick start things and to motivate me, I plan on doing an army and keeping you all updated. Who knows, I might even try to go to Adepticon and compete :)  (big maybe) Anyways, for those of you that know, Jawa is planning on doing his next marine chapter as the Lamenters. So I decided I will pick an army from the same war and decided to do....(big drumroll).... MANTIS WARRIORS!!! So be on the lookout on my blog to see updates.

Later that evening we met up with Fritz (who drove with his wife this year) and headed down to the Chicago bunker. My first impression of the place kind of made me gag to be honest. When I think bunker, I think of a place where no other store can match. Many many amazing looking tables, showcases full of gorgeous painted armies, posters hanging on the walls, maybe even a golden throne or something. Maybe it was just my imagination running wild as to what it could have been, but the actual bunker looked kind of cheap. By that I mean it was no more impressive than a local non-GW hobby shop back where I live. Either way we came, we played, we left.

During our stay at the bunker, Jawa and Fritz got into a game as nobody else seemed to be available. Everyone was playing 3v3 or 1v1. So Fritz and Jawa got into a pretty epic game. The game seemed very one sided in the beginning with Jawa seeming like he was going to steam roll over Fritz's eldar army. I walked out to Best Buy to pick up a memory card for my camera and when I got back, pretty much all of Jawa's units were destroyed. WTF?! All I could think about was 'What happened here in the last 10 minutes while I was gone?' Either way, they had a great epic battle.

We headed over to a tavern across the street for some food since we were all starving. I ended up getting a full rack of baby back ribs and OMG, they were freakin' awesome. Most definitely will go back if we are in the area. Not to mention that all the waitresses were smokin' hot. Three thumbs up.

On our way back to the hotel, we got off the exit to some toll booths. There were no freakin' toll booths with people. Only their I-Pass lanes and coin lanes. WTF....there were no signs whatsoever about coins only....and no booths with people available! The three of us scrambled to find change and we didn't have any! What the hell are we suppose to do now LOL. So Fritz gets out and starts flagging people down to get change. Funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I suppose Jawa will get the video up soon for all to see one of these days, but something we will never forget.

Enough for this entry, I'll post up pictures and another entry soon with the events of Saturday: Games Day 2012!

Games Day Chicago 2012 is Here!

Well it's that time of year everyone....Games Day! I will be flying out early Friday morning with my buddy Jawaballs. Unfortunately our other friend Fritz will not be flying with us this year, BUT he will be driving there (along with his wife). Total dedication man! Gotta hand it to Fritz for driving, I would never....flying is so much easier :)

So for this year, I will not be submitting anything into the Golden Demon competition as I have been way too busy this past year with a new born and family deaths and all. It's sad that I will not be competing, but I will scout out the competition for next year. Good luck to all those that do enter! I'm sure alot of the pieces will inspire me to step up my game and enter next year.

Even though I will not be participating in the Golden Demons competition this year, I will be participating in the speed painting, build and take, and all the other great stuff Games Day has to offer (Yes even the wonderfully super long ForgeWorld line). Also will be supporting Jawa and his awesome banner! You guys thought that the banners from the past were good, wait till you see this one!

I'm also interested in seeing the costumes this year...always a great group of people putting their heart and soul into their costumes. A few are not so great, a bunch are amazing, and sometimes we something just jaw dropping. Wonder what it'll be this year. Not to mention the awesome 'Hot Chick' costume....always one or two of them walking around at Games Day. They should have a category for 'smoking hot chick in costume'...I bet all us guys would be whistling and shouting like crazy LOL.

Let's see, what else....OH...there is always the great time afterwards hanging out with friends I haven't seen in over a year. I'm sure we'll grab a beer and an awesome steak and have some good old times laughing as usual.

Well, I'll post up some pics and vids of the the event when I get back. If you're there, just look for the HUGE Ultramarines banner that Jawa is entering and I'm sure to be hanging around him :)

Been a very very long time!

It's been almost a whole year since I wrote last....holy crap!

Well, I guess that's what happens when you fall out of gaming and painting for awhile. I pretty much hit a slump as I really wasn't into the gaming and painting anymore for a long time. I was so busy with work that I just couldn't find the time to do any gaming or painting. Plus having our first son really put me behind with time to do anything for myself. There is no time, well let me rephrase that, not enough time to do the things that I want to do. Most of the time I'm helping feed the baby, change the baby, play and spend time with the baby....all of which I believe are more important than playing with toy soldiers, but I guess I just lost track of time and how much I really did enjoy gaming and painting.

I still don't know if I have the time to play much as I only have one day during the week, but with the new 6th edition out, I might as well try. So that being said, I was speaking with Jawa and had a plan. He is starting a new Lamenters Marine army and I figured that I should start an army as well. This way I can feel like that we are both painting an army and building a competitive army from scratch. Who knows, maybe if I can make time, I might try to go with Jawa or Fritz to a competition. That's a big maybe though :)

Hopefully I can stick to it this time and actually finish something. I guess I'll have to ask Jawa and Fritz to get on my ass about it every once in awhile to press me into finishing it. I hate not finishing, but I also hate doing repetitive things, example...keeping up with a blog and posting consistently (if you haven't noticed LOL.)

So what army do you guys think I should start and try to finish. Not a generic one, but a competitive army list. Maybe something like 2000pts or something.

Current WIP

So I got the opportunity to buy a Tau army from a friend and have been thinking of a color scheme to paint the army. Originally, I bought the army as part of a commission, but after discussing and (almost) finalizing the army, the client backed out....what the heck!

Well now I'm stuck with this army and don't plan on hanging on to it as it just takes up more room. So I decided that I was going to sell it, but I was going to sell it painted. This would at least draw more people to look at it and it would be a done army that I can focus on for awhile to post up on blogger as well. By no means am I painting this army at a Golden Demon quality, but above table top gaming quality.

So far, I've base coated and did the cloth for 6 Fire Warriors and I've blended the Shas'Ui a bit more to give it some highlights. Just need to do some shading on him and pick out some details. I've decided that I was going to do all the metal work in NMM. First off, this would make the army pretty cool looking, but secondly it would also allow me to work on my NMM painting. After I finish the 6 man squad, I plan on painting a 3 man Stealth Team, then a Devilfish for the Fire Warriors. Here's the progress so far (sorry about the bad pics):

Golden Demon Entry voting and Games Day

I decided to throw up my mini's picture on CMON and wanted to see what vote score it would get. So far it's only gotten about 42 votes or so. If you'd like, please click HERE to go to the voting page and vote for my mini and score it what you think it should be.

There is just so much to go over from last weekend and I'm still kind of sorting out my pictures and wrapping my brain around the whole event. One of the cool things that I saw at GD was the video gaming stations set up. As a video gamer, it was like a dream paradise come true! There were so many Xbox and PS3 systems and high performance PC's that I almost wet myself.  The platforms were out to unveil the new Space Marine game that will be coming out on consoles next month. The line for these machines were packed, but lucky I was able to get in a few minutes of gaming on Friday night after set up.

The game is just amazing!!! And the flow from shooting to close combat attacks is so natrual feeling and allows the game to flow without any real mis-steps. You don't even have a chance to question what you should do, but all you do is react to the situation and play....this allows the user to be more combat oriented or just go gung-ho and fire away like a crazy mad man. Totally awesome to play.

Not to mention the uber cool life sized chainsword they had on display. It was planned that the chainsword was going to be given away, but I guess they changed their minds...I wouldn't want to give it away either! Makes me want to try to make one for myself to wield around. I mean who wouldn't want one of those things?

During the day, the gang and I went to do a speed demon painting competition. We had 45 minutes to paint up a model that was supplied to us and we also had to use GW standard size brushes. Oh how I love my Kolinsky and W&N Series 7 that much more!  Once the painting began, I had already planned in my head and decided that I was going to try to paint mono-tone. I was aiming at using basically one color: Codex Grey. Of course I would use Chaos Black for the shadows and blending, but with only 45 minutes to spare and not enough color choices, this was the way to win! In the end, the judges seemed to be just choosing the models that looked the most accurate to the real color scheme. Oh well, it was still fun and I had a good experience with going the mono-tone route and may visit that style of painting once again in the near future.



My mono-tone attempt



The group shot!

 After GD was over, we were pretty much exhausted and all wanted a nice dinner....so onwards we went to Gibson's. It was highly recommended by alot of people so we decided to go. It was a bit pricey, but OMG the food was amazing!!!! Not to mention it was the only resturant that I've been to in my lifetime that actually served steak portions more than 20 oz.!!!! And no I didn't order anything that big, but it was definately a sight to see when others ordered huge meals. Can't wait to go back next year!

Games Day 2011 Chicago

So the official Games Workshop website has been updated with all the winning entries from this year's Golden Demon competition. The website is HERE.

My one and only entry this year was in the 40K Large Monster category where I placed second behind and amazing GK Knight.

My goal for next year is to enter in as many categories as possible to take home multiple demons. Doesn't have to be gold, but multiple!!! :)

Games Day 2011

So we are back! Finally! After 7 or so hours waiting at the airport yesterday and getting back in around 11:30pm. I was completely exhausted. But it was fun hanging with Jawa and Frtiz at the airport, watching 'The Thing' on Jawa's laptop lol.

Overall, I had a blast this past weekend at Chicago Games Day. I got to hang out with some truly awesome people. Being apart of the 'Heroes of Armageddon' project and putting the models on the table was very cool. There were just so many models on the table that you couldn't not find any cool angles to look from. A big thanks to Mike and John over at SantaCruz Warhammer and all the team leaders for getting this together. We ended up raising $32,000 for 'Doctors without Borders'.



The Crew

Jawa took best banner (again) this year and there were alot of cool banners and costumes. So great job Jawa!!! He's got something special planned for next year, I could arleady see the twinkle in his eye getting ready for a 4-peat.

I was also honored this past weekend.....with a SILVER DEMON in 40k Large! I couldn't believe it and I still can't believe it. The model that took gold in the category was absolutely amazing and jaw dropping (Drew Drescher's DreadKnight). I had some time to introduce myself and meet up with alot of amazing painters and demon/sword winners. Got alot of helpful advice and tips to make my painting a bit better. Hopefully this win will allow me to be motivated enough to build and paint more models before next year's GD. I plan on some cool things.

More pics and things to come.

Bloodcrusher WIP

So I'm plugging away here with this Bloodcrusher. Just taking ages to get it done. As I seem to be getting closer to finishing, I am finding more areas or things to do on the model, thus prolonging finishing the model. I'm not actually sure if I'll ever finish it in time for GD, but I will get pretty damn close to it being done. Here are some more uploaded photos.... as always, comments and opinions appreciated.

BTW, I was on Jawaballs Live on Sunday evening for the drawing of the four winners. Congrats to all the winners! I envy you guys as I wish I was allowed a chance to win one of these awesome armies and prizes. I am super excited that we were able to raise a total of $31,000. That's right, you heard it right. It is an incredible feat to raise this amount of money for a cause. Hopefully next year, we will be able to raise close to the same amount if not more. I think the bar has been set very high this year and it will be very tough to beat next year, but I believe that the people who organized this event have some dark secrets in the works already.